


You Are Never To Scare Me Like That Again

by Secretbadass



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Caring Sherlock, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Feelings Realization, Friendship, M/M, No Mary, No Smut, Not S4 Compliant, Post-Reichenbach, Sick John, Sickfic, Vomiting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-18
Updated: 2017-05-18
Packaged: 2018-11-02 01:57:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10934595
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Secretbadass/pseuds/Secretbadass
Summary: A chase brings back traumatic memories for John, and a virus leaves him helpless and Sherlock terrified.





	You Are Never To Scare Me Like That Again

**Author's Note:**

> My first ever fanfic. Kind of feel like I'm about to step off the roof of St. Bart's myself. Ulp.

“Do keep up, John!” yelled Sherlock Holmes. John Watson raised his head to see his friend and flatmate clambering up a fire escape in the narrow alley. He grabbed the ladder and began his own ascent, adrenaline pumping. 

He and Sherlock were in pursuit of their latest quarry, a nasty little man with a lantern jaw and deficient personal hygiene named Mulroney. John had cornered him in an alley and Mulroney, faced with Sherlock charging toward him from one direction and Lestrade’s crew waiting in the other, had made the unwise decision of slashing at John with a knife before clambering up the nearest fire escape. John had dodged the slash, although he was thrown off balance for a moment. Sherlock sprinted up, paused just long enough to ascertain that John was unhurt, and pelted off in Mulroney’s wake with a look of ferocity about him that boded ill for his quarry. 

John reached the roof moments after Sherlock, in time to see the famous Belstaff disappear around the corner of a rooftop stairwell entrance. John pelted across the roof, skidding a little as he rounded the corner, then stopped short. Ahead of him, Sherlock’s figure was silhouetted against the dusk sky, arms spread and Belstaff flying, as he mounted the rooftop ledge. John watched, rooted to the spot in something very like horrified déjà vu, as the moment seemed to stretch and Sherlock fell. John’s stomach went with him. He bent forward for a moment, putting a hand to the cold brickwork to his right and drawing deep breaths to help his innards settle back where they belonged. Then he was up and running. He had to know what was happening.

“ _Sherlock!_ ” he cried, aware in some dim part of his brain that he had screamed that same name, in that same tone, once before, on the very worst day of his life. He scrambled over to the ledge, dread a leaden weight in his belly. 

“Here, John,” came Sherlock’s voice, and John went weak again, this time with relief. “I’m here.” The detective turned away for a moment, stepping to the edge of the roof nearest the street to look down, waving an arm. “Lestrade! Up here!”

The roof of the adjoining building, where Sherlock stood, was a storey lower than the one where John was, accounting for Sherlock’s disappearance from view. John made out the sprawled form of Mulroney, flat on his back, arms splayed, blood on his face. And there was Sherlock, turned back toward John now, breathing hard and looking up at him. Some part of him knew that he should be getting down there with Sherlock, standing over Mulroney at least, to make sure he didn’t regain consciousness and try any more shenanigans. But another part of him was hearing a distant echo of his own voice. _Let me come through, please. He’s my friend! No, he’s my friend. He’s my friend, please!_

Concern flickered through the detective’s eyes as he took in John’s vacant gaze and ashen features. “Are you all right, John?”

“Yeah, fine,” John managed, his tone not quite as robust as he would have liked. He sat down on the ledge, bringing a hand up to pinch the bridge of his nose. He felt slightly lightheaded, detached from his surroundings. _Acute stress response_ , the clinical part of his brain recited. _General discharge of the sympathetic nervous system in response to a real or perceived threat_. He took another deep breath and emphasized the word _perceived_. There had been no threat. Sherlock was fine. He hadn’t fallen. No threat at all. _Pull it together, Watson_ , he told himself. _You’ve been through worse, seen worse, countless times_. Yet his stomach roiled.

Some thirty minutes later, after Lestrade and his crew had taken charge of the suspect (“Clocked him a good one, yeah?” Lestrade had commented, standing over the still very much unconscious Mulroney. “He tried to stab John,” Sherlock had said with a glower, and Lestrade had simply nodded. No one came between Sherlock Holmes and his blogger—or vice versa, as Mulroney had just discovered to his detriment), Sherlock and John had given their preliminary statements and hailed a cab back to Baker Street. 

In the cab, Sherlock eyed John discreetly, taking in the older man’s continued silence and pallor. “John...” he began, his voice barely audible over the cab’s sounds. John turned to face him, looking through Sherlock more than at him. 

“Not feeling well, Sherlock. Pretty sure I picked something up at the surgery. Don’t fuss.” 

Yes. He knew how John hated to be fussed over. John’s gaze skated away again and he returned to staring through his own reflection in the cab window. Sherlock nodded, recognizing and accepting the half-truth for what it was. 

He settled back in his seat, turning his head away and thinking. It was quite obvious that something more than feeling unwell was at work here, but what? Between the time of the attempted stabbing and Sherlock’s apprehension of Mulroney, something had happened to upset John, to put that haunted look in his eyes—this was something more than just a virus. 

Had it been the near-stabbing? The detective dismissed the thought out of hand. Of course not. John was a soldier. He’d had dozens of closer shaves from which he’d emerged without so much as a collywobble. No, that couldn’t be it. There had been no one else on the rooftop, so no opportunity for John to interact with someone who might have upset him in some way. John had spoken to Lestrade and one or two of his team earlier on, but the exchanges had been brief, cordial and businesslike. Certainly nothing troubling there. Had Sherlock himself done something to distress John? Sherlock knew he could be abrasive, sometimes saying and doing things that unintentionally hurt his friend, yet he could not recall any such instance this night. John had been fine up until the pursuit of Mulroney. He was decidedly not fine afterward. Therefore, something had happened in the interim to cause his present distress. Furthermore, whatever had occurred was something John did not feel comfortable talking to his friend about. 

Sherlock closed his eyes, reviewing the pursuit of Mulroney from John’s perspective—there had been the alley, the near stabbing, Sherlock checking on him, the climb up the fire escape in the detective’s wake, turn to skirt the stairwell entrance, Sherlock’s leap off the roof... 

Oh. 

He replayed the scene as it would have looked to John. Of course. There it was. John had seen him fall. Again. Sherlock opened his eyes, seeking John out, but his friend was still turned away. He fought the impulse to reach out, to say he understood, to apologize as he had so many times before. John had forgiven him for that day at St. Bart’s, he knew, but clearly the emotional wounds had not completely healed. Perhaps they never would, the detective admitted to himself. Of all the miscalculations he had made in his life, Sherlock Holmes ranked his failure to account for John’s attachment to him as the most egregious. What he had done had been necessary, but it had been done in an unnecessarily cruel way, and it had very nearly destroyed John. Sherlock’s hand curled in his lap as he curbed the urge to reach out to his friend. _Don’t fuss_ , Sherlock reminded himself.

The remainder of the ride home passed in silence. When they reached the flat, John declined Sherlock’s offer of tea or something stronger, instead going directly to the bathroom for a shower. He emerged a few minutes later, muttered a goodnight, and disappeared upstairs to his room. Sherlock watched him go with a twinge of worry. He moved to his chair and settled himself to think.

So. The fall, then. 

From the moment they had met, Sherlock had known that John had demons. The PTSD and psychosomatic limp Sherlock had deduced were proof of that. Knowledge of John’s flashbacks and nightmares had come later. But only recently had Sherlock begun to fathom just how much damage his “death” had done to his friend, how much it had added to the burden of trauma John already bore. He had saved John’s life by pretending to take his own, but at what cost? Here was more proof of the devastation his actions had wrought. He had had no choice in the matter, and once his initial anger and hurt had passed, John had understood that, but Sherlock had miscalculated badly when it came to anticipating the depth of John’s grief and despair at his loss. He knew what John meant to him, yet he had not seen how much he, in turn, meant to John. There was always something, and emotions had always been a bit of a blind spot for Sherlock. Terra incognita, and strewn with landmines into the bargain. He felt as though he had just blundered into one. He sighed. Would he ever get this right?

Some part of him—the part that sounded an awful lot like his brother, Mycroft—asked why he even cared. Life was so much simpler without sentiment. _All lives end; all hearts are broken; caring is not an advantage, Sherlock_. No, caring was distinctly not an advantage. Not when you ended up wounding those you cared about. Life was easier, cleaner, less confusing and painful when sentiment was not allowed to factor in. But sentiment, it seemed, had a mind of its own, at least where John Watson was concerned. How was it possible to care deeply about someone, to want nothing but the best for them, to do everything in one’s power to safeguard their life and happiness, yet still wound them as deeply as he had wounded John? Did intention count for nothing? 

Sentiment had led him to make some dreadful life choices, Sherlock acknowledged. At those times in his life when he had sought out the oblivion of drugs, sentiment had always been at the root of it. And while he might claim that his drug use was for a case or an experiment or purely for recreation, and that he was a user rather than an addict, in some still, small part of himself, Sherlock knew that these were all rationalizations and that all addiction was the same. All addiction was about the management of emotion. Sherlock’s descents into drug use had always been the result of how he felt—lonely, bored, hopeless, bereft—and how few outlets he had had for those feelings. Friendless, and with only a disapproving older brother to turn to, there was no comfort to be had, even had Sherlock been willing to seek it. He had learned not to. People always left, but drugs were a constant—a distraction, a temporary way to calm his emotional turmoil. 

But then he had met John, and suddenly he did not need drugs anymore—at least, not as long as John was with him. Incredibly, John had become his flatmate and almost immediately his friend and protector, and then, in time, his conductor of light. John understood him in ways that continually surprised and moved him. Sherlock knew he was a difficult person to understand and a challenge to live with, given to towering strops and erratic behaviour that would drive even the most unflappable flatmate barmy, yet no matter how many times John stormed out, he always came back. That was the most astonishing thing of all. Everyone, until John, had always left. No one, until John, had mattered. John was the exception to so many rules. 

John was his protector just as much as Mycroft was, albeit in a different way. Perhaps even more so than Mycroft, for John and Sherlock mostly met on an equal footing and did not have the difficult history Sherlock shared with his brother. John lacked Mycroft’s supercilious attitude and did not try to run Sherlock’s life for him, beyond the occasional nudge in the right direction. Yet he and Mycroft did have Sherlock’s best interests at heart and often worked together to protect him, particularly on what Mycroft and John called (somewhat melodramatically, in Sherlock’s view) his danger nights—nights where Sherlock’s demons—his sentiment—left him at greater risk for self-destructive choices. Nights when he needed something, anything, to calm the maelstrom of thoughts and feelings swirling in his head. 

Sherlock had to concede that their concern was generally warranted, and while he would sooner shower in batrachotoxin than say so, he was grateful to Mycroft and John for their vigilance, for keeping him right. But John and Mycroft did not know everything. For instance, they did not know that Sherlock Holmes was not the only one to have danger nights. John Watson had them, too. 

Night had settled in earnest around 221B. Sherlock rose from his chair, feeling chilled from his prolonged immobility. He made a fire in the grate, then made himself some tea, moving to the stairwell door and leaving it ajar so he could keep an ear out. He returned to his chair and settled himself there. He would be standing watch this night.

It was nearly 2 a.m. when Sherlock’s ears caught the first sign of the nightmare. He could just make out the sound of John thrashing around in his bed, followed by some muffled cries. Sherlock waited. Would this be a bad one? The thrashing and cries intensified. There was a clatter as something was knocked to the floor. A bad one, then. 

John’s nightmares were almost always to do with the war, or at least they began that way before his subconscious introduced the horror of the moment. Sometimes Sherlock could head the dreams off by playing his violin; other times he would simply provide companionship when John eventually stumbled downstairs, bleary-eyed and disoriented, to spend the remainder of the night drinking tea and watching mindless telly. John never talked about his dreams, and Sherlock never asked. Yet he felt—he hoped—that his presence was of some comfort to John on those nights. 

Sherlock was just reaching for his bow, intending to play a soothing melody, when there came an anguished cry of, “ _Sherlock!_ ” and Sherlock was across the room and up the stairs before the echo died. He burst into John’s room to find his flatmate still thrashing about in bed, gasping for breath, eyes open but unseeing. “Sherlock!” he cried again. Not just a nightmare, then. John wasn’t awake. There was silence for a moment, and then John's next words stole the breath from Sherlock's lungs. "I'm a doctor. Let me come through. Let me come through, please," he said brokenly. He moved, restless, struggling against unseen hands.

“John!" Sherlock said, more sharply than he had intended. He wanted the nightmare to stop, now, wanted John's torment to end, but this was not the way to go about it. He took a breath and began again, his tone softer. "John, I’m here.” Sherlock moved toward the bed but did not reach out. He knew it was unwise to wake a PTSD sufferer suddenly and was wary of provoking a violent reaction by startling John with his touch. At the sound of his voice, John seemed to shake himself, blinking, and looked around the dim room. He grimaced and put a hand to his left shoulder.

“Sherlock? You’re here?”

Sherlock moved closer, extending a tentative hand. “I’m here, John. It was a nightmare. Are you awake now? Are you okay?”

John sat up, then got to his knees. “Yeah, I’m awake. Come here.” He reached out, grasping Sherlock’s right wrist and pulling it toward him, one hand coming up to clasp the detective’s while the other sought out the pulse point at the base of Sherlock’s thumb. He gave a sigh of relief. "Just checking." He stared up at his flatmate a moment longer before pulling him into a fierce embrace. “You fell,” he said, his voice breaking. “I saw you fall.” Somehow Sherlock knew he meant tonight, not all those years ago at Bart’s. Sherlock bent low, bringing his hands up around John’s back, burying his face in John’s hair. 

“I’m sorry,” he breathed. “God, John, I’m so sorry.”

“S’okay,” John said, more to himself than Sherlock, though his grip on the detective did not slacken. “I know you didn’t do it on purpose. Are you really okay?” 

“I really am. I’m fine, John. I’m fine and I’m not going anywhere.” He felt John nod and give another relieved sigh, but then a tremor shook his body and John’s teeth began chattering. “John?” Only then did he register the heat radiating from John in waves. Sherlock pulled back, bringing a hand to John’s cheek. “You have a fever, John. At least 39 degrees, I would say.”

“Yeah...feeling a bit not good right now,” John acknowledged, although this was now self-evident. He hugged his arms around himself, shivering, and moved to the edge of the bed. “Need some water and paracetamol.”

“Let me help you,” said Sherlock, hooking a hand under John’s arm and supporting him as he stood. The fact that John made no objection to this level of fussing on Sherlock’s part was worrisome. 

They had just reached the bottom of the stairs when John suddenly stiffened and said, “Oh, God. Loo, _now!_ ” He scrambled to the bathroom and managed to raise the toilet seat before falling to his knees, clutching the porcelain as his body began ejecting everything he had eaten in recent memory. He vomited violently again and again, barely able to draw breath before each new paroxysm overtook him. At last it eased up and he fumbled for the toilet handle, flushing away the mess. Everything hurt. Tears had been forced from his eyes and were coursing down his cheeks, and he wiped them away as he shuddered and gasped for breath, head pounding. 

Suddenly Sherlock was there with a flannel, pressing the cold cloth to his forehead and neck in turn. John tried to draw away, sitting back against the edge of the bathtub. “Keep back, Sherlock. I don’t want you catching this.” He pressed the back of one hand to his mouth. "Also...there's a very good chance I will vomit on you."

“I don’t care about that, John. Please let me help.” The request was moving in its plaintive simplicity. _Let me help._

“Okay,” said John. He was too tired and sick to argue. “Okay.” He leaned his head against Sherlock’s forearm as his friend pressed the cold cloth to his forehead. He breathed a little, not wanting to move for the moment. Sherlock seemed to sense this and settled on the floor next to him, the flannel dangling from one hand. He wasn’t sure how long they remained there, but John must have dozed off because he awoke with his head on Sherlock’s shoulder and a churning in his gut. 

“Oh, no," he groaned. "Round two.” He assumed the position again. The second time around was, if anything, worse than the first, his body insisting on continuing to heave even when there was nothing left to bring up. It went on and on. John hung over the bowl, throat raw from the burning bile, sides aching, diaphragm in spasms, completely wrung out. Dear God, even the worst hangover of his life—and it had been one for the ages—hadn’t been this bad. At last it eased up and he rested his head on one forearm, eyes closed. His pulse thudded at the base of his skull. Without raising his head, he reached for the handle and flushed. He felt a gentle hand on his back. Clutching his aching head, he moved back again to sit against the tub.

“John?” Sherlock asked, concern evident in his tone. When John failed to meet his eye, he moved the older man’s hand away and brought his own hands to either side of John’s head, peering into his face. There were petechiae around John’s mouth and in the whites of his eyes. “John, look at me!”

“Can’t do that right now, Sherlock,” said John, still not meeting his eyes. His head wobbled as though it was too heavy for his neck.

Sherlock’s fingers tightened on his face. “Why not? John, what’s wrong?” There was more than just concern in the detective’s voice now. There was near panic, because John wasn’t looking at him. John wasn’t looking at _anything_. 

John put his hands over Sherlock’s. “I can’t see, Sherlock.”

“What? What does this mean? You could have a brain bleed or a retinal—”

“Sherlock—”

“—let me get my phone, I’ll—”

“Sherlock!”

“—an ambulance. Maybe Mycroft—”

“SHERLOCK!” John thundered, then groaned as both his abraded throat and pounding head made their displeasure known. He put a hand to the back of his head, because that seemed a reasonable response to the sensation that one's skull was about to split open lengthwise. He continued, his voice quieter, hoarse but firm. “Stop and listen. Please.”

“What, John? What?” Sherlock’s hands moved to his upper arms.

“Listen to me. Are you listening?”

“I’m listening, John. What?” 

“Increased intracranial pressure. It can happen sometimes when...” he gestured in the direction of the toilet. “If it’s really violent, pressure can build up inside the brain and press on the optic nerve. It’s temporary. I’ll be fine in a few minutes.”

“But you can’t see, John! What if you’re not fine in a few minutes? What if—” John could feel the hands on his biceps shaking.

“Sherlock, stop! Please. Give it twenty minutes. If at the end of that time I’m not okay, then I promise you can call anyone you like and I’ll go. But please just give me that time.”

“John, I really think it would be best to—”

“For fuck’s sake, Sherlock, _please!_ ”

John looked so miserable that Sherlock subsided with a low grumble, turning to sit beside his friend on the bathroom floor, making sure to stay close so John knew where he was. Now he knew just how John must have felt all those times Sherlock had disregarded his medical advice. John sagged against the bathtub, head tilted back, eyes closing. His skin was blotchy, feverish flush warring with the pastiness of nausea, petechiae dotting his face. Sherlock had never seen him look so ill.

“Well,” said John with a weak smile, “scientific wisdom may say otherwise, but I have definitive proof that time travel is indeed possible.” He didn’t need eyesight to sense the bemused look Sherlock was shooting him. Was the fever making John delirious? “Pretty sure I just chundered meals I haven’t even eaten yet.”

He felt Sherlock’s laugh before he heard it, and after a moment he joined in, although giggling hurt almost every part of him there was to hurt. A minute later they sobered and John felt a hand slide into his. “Please be okay, John.” Sherlock’s voice was almost inaudible. John squeezed the hand with his own. 

“I will be, I promise. Just give it time.” Suddenly his head felt too heavy for his body. He sagged against Sherlock and the detective gathered his blogger to him, guiding his flatmate’s head down onto his shoulder. 

“You’re still burning up,” said Sherlock, as chills wracked John’s frame. 

“I know. I’ll take some paracetamol as soon as I can keep it down.” He squinted upward. “I think I can see, a bit. Yeah, I can make out the light. It’s a red haze, but I can see it.”

Sherlock gave an audible sigh of relief. They huddled there together on the floor for some time, John with his eyes closed and Sherlock unaware that he was rocking him in his arms until John said, "That feels nice." Sherlock tightened his arms around him and went on rocking. After a few minutes, John stirred. The hard floor was uncomfortable. He sat up, though he kept one hand on Sherlock's arm for support.

“Can you stand?” asked Sherlock. “I’m sure you’d be more comfortable on the sofa.”

John straightened and was about to answer when all at once his lips turned white. "Sherlock...help me!" He fumbled forward, already retching, and Sherlock scrambled to help him into position. He kept a steadying hand on the doctor's heaving back and another on his side, wincing in sympathy as he felt John's abdominals spasming beneath his touch. John circled an arm around his own midsection as his abs clenched. When it was over, Sherlock flushed the toilet and drew a shuddering John back toward him. John shook helplessly, gasping in pain. "Head...hurts..." he managed, and Sherlock reached out to cradle it in a gentle hand.

"I'm here, John," he murmured with a cheek against his blogger's hair. "I have you."

"I know...know you do," said John. He struggled to keep his eyes open. "Always...known that..." his voice trailed off and he went limp in Sherlock's arms.

"John? _John!_ " shouted Sherlock, but his friend was unresponsive. He turned John's limp form until he could press two fingers to his neck. He located the carotid artery and was relieved to feel John's pulse there, elevated but strong. He gathered his friend up and gave a grunt as he stood. John was heavier than he looked, but fortunately for them both, Sherlock was stronger than _he_ looked. He carried John into the living room.

When John came back to himself, he could feel something cold and damp on his forehead and something else pressing into his neck. He grimaced and moved his head away, and the uncomfortable pressure eased.

"There you are," breathed Sherlock. "You were unconscious for two minutes and 36 seconds. An _eternity,_ John!"

John opened his eyes, but a grey mist seemed to swirl before them. Yes, now he remembered—the joys of "time travel." He wasn't on the bathroom floor anymore, that much was clear. There was worn leather beneath his touch. The sofa, then. He brought a hand up to his forehead and removed the cold cloth. 

"How do you feel?" asked Sherlock. 

"Oh, tip-top," John rasped. "Ready to take on the world."

"Mmm. Sass circuits are back online, I see," said Sherlock. The tremor in his voice belied his light tone. "I'll take that as a good sign."

John ran a parched tongue over cracked lips. "I feel like a tin of smashed arsehole, if you must know. Pretty sure a newborn kitten could give me a good thrashing about now." John struggled to sit up.

"Should you be sitting?" asked Sherlock. "You did just—"

"Yeah, I know, I was there," said John, grunting as he shifted himself, "but sitting upright will relieve the pressure faster." Sherlock helped him to sit, then fetched the Union Jack pillow from John's chair and placed it behind him. John squinted about the room. Still no go with the optics.

"Three minutes and 22 seconds," said Sherlock.

John frowned at the apparent non sequitur. "Wha—?"

"Until I can call someone. The agreement was 20 minutes until I could call for help or until your sight returned. It has now been 16 minutes and 46 seconds and you still can't see."

John groaned and rubbed his face with one hand. "Ugh...Sherlock, don't you think that third bout might have set the countdown back a bit?"

"Immaterial. Two minutes, 57 seconds now."

John groaned again. God, his head hurt. His sides hurt. _Everything_ hurt.

Sherlock saw. Of course Sherlock saw. “Can I get you anything?" he asked, his tone gentler. "The paracetamol?”

John blew out a breath. “Let’s start with some water,” he decided. “If that stays down, I’ll take the tablets.” He shivered. Sherlock reached for the afghan on the back of the sofa and draped it over John’s shoulders.

“Ta,” said John. He looked knackered. The pallor had receded, leaving the feverish flush to take its place.

Sherlock moved to the kitchen and came back, pressing a cold glass into his friend’s hand. John heard the clink of ice cubes. “Ice water,” he said.

“To quell the nausea,” said Sherlock. 

“Ta,” said John again, taking a tentative sip. When there was no immediate intestinal revolt, he took another. “Good thinking. That feels good.” 

“Do you need anything else?” asked Sherlock.

John indicated the glass in his hand. “Maybe a chunder bin, just in case this decides to come back up.”

Sherlock left and returned a moment later with the bathroom bin and a fresh liner, and John continued sipping his water as he watched Sherlock arrange the receptacle near the sofa. 

“You watched me do that,” said Sherlock. “You can see.”

“Yeah,” said John, nodding as he looked up at his friend. “I can see fine again.” And the sight of the beatific smile that spread over Sherlock’s features at his words was one he would not soon forget. John’s answering smile was cut short as chills shook him again, raising gooseflesh on his arms. 

“Paracetamol?” asked Sherlock.

“Yeah,” said John through chattering teeth.

Sherlock fetched the bottle, extracted two tablets, and gave them to John, then steadied his friend's trembling hands as he brought the glass to his lips. John managed to down the medication and drain what was left in the glass. A sudden wave of drowsiness overtook him. “Need to sleep,” he slurred, eyes closing of their own accord. Sherlock moved the Union Jack pillow to John's side and helped him stretch out. John was asleep before his flatmate had finished making him comfortable.

The detective knelt next to the sofa, tucking the afghan around his friend and smoothing John's damp hair back from where it had stuck to his forehead. "Made it with 48 seconds to spare," he murmured. "Taking it right down to the wire, John. Extremely unwise and far too close for comfort. And we really must have a conversation about your unfortunate tendency to overdramatise. All this going blind and losing consciousness, really. It's not on. Simply won't do. There is only room enough in this relationship for one drama queen, and for the record, that's me. But I'll make an exception, just this once, on one condition." He leaned closer, letting out a shaky breath, then whispered into his friend's ear: "You are never to scare me like that again, John Watson. Do you hear me? Never. Again."

When John next awoke some hours later, early morning sunlight was slanting into the flat. Something soft and warm was over him, and after a moment he recognized it as the down comforter from Sherlock’s bed. He took stock of his condition. The headache was mostly gone—only a faint echo of pain remained at the back of his skull. His back was killing him, but that was only to be expected after a virus of this sort, followed by a night spent on the sofa. His fever appeared to have broken while he slept: there were no more chills, but his skin felt clammy where the drenching sweat had dried, and his hair was plastered to his scalp.

He stirred and the puffy duvet shifted, revealing a head of raven curls nearly at his elbow. Sherlock was sitting on the floor, sound asleep, head pillowed on one forearm at the edge of the sofa. John shuddered to think of the aches Sherlock would have when he awoke, but he knew the younger man would scoff at his concern. _It's just transport, John_. Yet he felt a sudden upwelling of tenderness for his friend and flatmate, and gratitude for the excellent care Sherlock had taken of him during the night. He reached out a tentative hand and, as he had wanted to do always but had never dared, sank his fingers into his friend’s luxuriant curls. 

In response to his touch, Sherlock stirred, lifting his head and bringing a hand to the back of his neck as the first of the aches made its presence known. His eyes sought John’s, and John thought he had never seen a more beautiful sight than a newly awakened Sherlock, even one so haggard and pale as his friend looked this morning. His expression was soft and unguarded. John looked into his friend’s eyes and caught his breath at the tenderness he saw there. Gentleness. Kindness. Love. There was _love_ radiating from those sea-glass eyes. _Sherlock doesn’t feel things that way, I don’t think_ , John had once said to Mycroft, and he had truly believed that at the time. Yet now he was forced to trust the evidence of his own eyes. Sherlock loved him. His chest constricted in a way that had nothing to do with the vestiges of the night’s illness. The man he loved loved him back. A new vista seemed to open up before him.

The detective raised a hand to John’s cheek. “No fever,” he said. “Good.” He made to remove his hand, but John caught it in his own.

“Thank you,” said John, hoping that Sherlock could read his thoughts. _For taking care of me. For watching over me. For loving me._ "For a detective, you make an excellent nurse," he said, smiling.

"And for a doctor, you make a rubbish patient," Sherlock countered. He smiled again and John squeezed his hand. He would have to act on these feelings soon, but not now. Not yet. Not when he was still ill and they were both knackered and aching and had just been put through an emotional wringer. _What might we deduce about his heart?_ Mycroft had once asked him. But now John didn’t need to deduce. He had seen what was in Sherlock’s heart, had seen it with his own eyes, and he knew there was nothing there to fear. 

“Do you think you could tolerate some tea?” asked Sherlock, releasing John's hand before rising and stretching.

“Yeah,” said John. “Tea sounds brilliant.”

When John took his first sip some minutes later, he found that Sherlock had stirred in a bit of honey. John didn’t normally sweeten his hot beverages, but this felt like heaven on his still-raw throat. He closed his eyes and gave a contented sigh, then opened them again and sought out his flatmate’s gaze. The tender look had not vanished.

“You’re welcome,” said Sherlock, and sipped his tea with a small smile.

**Author's Note:**

> Temporary blindness from violent vomiting is a real thing. It happened to my grandfather once when he got food poisoning. Like John, he was a former soldier, although he lacked John's medical background, and like John, he waited calmly for his eyesight to return and then went about his day as best he could.  
> Petechiae are small hemorrhages just under the skin caused by broken capillary blood vessels.  
> Ice water does help to calm nausea.  
> Batrachotoxin is nasty shit. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batrachotoxin


End file.
